LOS ANGELES — Did the Red Sox, and Ryan Dempster in specific, awaken a sleeping beast in either Alex Rodriguez or the Yanks on a whole? As far as Sunday went, David Ortiz thinks so.

Entering Friday, the Yankees had won five straight, starting with Sunday night's game at Fenway Park when Dempster hit Rodriguez.

"All I said was that I didn’t think that hitting A-Rod was right at the time and it was because that kind of woke him up and we ended up losing the game," Ortiz said Friday at Dodger Stadium, clarifying his comments to USA Today from this week that some took as critical of Dempster. "Did I lie about that? I think it was what everybody saw.

"I didn’t say that I was mad at my teammates for hitting somebody, or I was made that he hit A-Rod. I said it because I think you have to make sure to win every game as possible. We’ve got Tampa breathing down our neck and they already won earlier that day. That’s all I mean. I didn’t mean anything else.”

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Ortiz and Dempster talked the matter through, so there shouldn't be any bad feelings.
"We talked, we talked," Ortiz said. "He knows that I have nothing against him. That’s my boy. That’s my boy. But the thing is, we’re here to back each other up and when I screwed up as a teammate, they will let me know. we go back and forth. And he knows that. if he feels like he wants to do that or whatever, fine. He knows what happened afterwards.

"I’m pretty sure he understands. It’s not like we’re trying to fight or I’m trying to be his dad or anything like that. it’s what we’re here for. But I don’t know why they’re making a big deal about, that’s the thing. I guess they’ve got nothing else to talk about. This ain’t something to make a big deal about. it is what it is.”

The Dodgers, Boston's opponent for the next three nights, have had their share of dust-ups in 2013. There was an ugly benches-clearing brawl in June with the Diamondbacks, and another with the D-backs in April.

As the hottest team in the majors, Los Angeles might be evidence then that those kind of events can have a positive impact on a team — even if they're a nasty side of the game. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, who coached Rodriguez with the Yankees, spoke to that idea relative to his club.

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"You don't ever know when (brawls are) going to happen, so it's not like something you can plan or try to do," Mattingly said. "But I think it tells you a lot as much as anything it tells you about your guys. Really, in both of our incidents involving protection issues, as much as anything, Yasiel (Puig) gets hit, their guy gets hit — normally at that point it's over. And then it continues on. It's just kind of protecting their own guys. With San Diego we felt that like that was just silly more than anything. But I guess along those lines, I guess it can (build character). But it tells you if your guys are going to protect each other. Cause if your guys don't protect each other then it causes a rift in the clubhouse. If the hitters are getting thrown out and no one is protecting, throw them back the other way, then you get a rift."

Speaking specifically to the Red Sox-Yanks incident, Mattingly found the problem to lie with umpire Brian O'Nora. O'Nora issued a warning to both benches — effectively preventing Yankees retaliation that night — and didn't toss Dempster.

"That seemed like an umpire issue for me," Mattingly said. "If (Dempster is) throwing at him on purpose, then he's either going to be thrown out or you got to let the Yankees retaliate and then it's over. It should be over at that point. But if you don't let anybody retaliate, now somebody's going to get hit down the road here somewhere, everybody's going to go 'Why?' It's going to be because of that. Somebody will get one somewhere."

Said Ortiz on the subject of future retaliation coming from the Yanks: "That's up to them. I got no control over that. At least they have a reason."

Ortiz left Wednesday's game in San Francisco early with lower-back tightness, but was back in the lineup Friday after Thursday's off-day and said he was fine.